Ten Volt Shock

6Null3 (2007)

Brian Shultz

A complaint sometimes registered with No Idea Records' Trapdoor Fucking Exit is that while they make wonderfully noisy post-hardcore, their songs are just too damn long. At 10 songs and 27:23, Ten Volt Shock's 6Null3 sounds like the direct response of those criticisms.

All the terms you'll come to expect with bands of this variety can be found on 6Null3: discordance, distorted singing and angular, fairly frenetic guitars. The album moves along at a bouncy, active clip, and while it usually offers songs that are perhaps even too short to reel the listener in and make a well-rounded impact, they're interesting all the same. Additionally, a lot of the songs do sound awfully similar, rarely if ever offering a distinct, standout track and that detracts from things as well. The German outfit's vocals are always incomprehensible but the riffs provided really swell and work well to the songs' advantages at least. "Some Days in Paris" locks into a nice, mid-tempo groove but if more was done with it it would be a wonderful song.

There's little else to say about 6Null3. Totally competent, well-played and hardly strolling down a beaten path but perhaps falling well short of the forceful impact it could ideally make.

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